


sight of the sun

by mishcollin



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Feel-good, M/M, POV Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-18
Updated: 2014-09-18
Packaged: 2018-02-17 22:24:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2325359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mishcollin/pseuds/mishcollin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: “Person A gets stood up by their date and ends up eating alone. Person B can be either a waiter at the restaurant or another person eating there.”</p><p>Or, in which Dean is a bartender down on his luck and a stranger wanders in from the cold one night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sight of the sun

**Chapter 1**

 

            Dean kinda sorta hates the winter.

            To be fair, he has his reasons. A fair amount of reasons. One being the shitty heat circulation in Harvelle’s Bar & Pub, which he’s begged Ellen like a million times now to let him fix, but he’s always met with a stern, “Do your damn job,” and a light, semi-affectionate swat on the back of the head. “Your damn job” being wiping down tables with goosebumps pebbling up his arms due to the thick, cold drafts that drift in through the open front doors every time a customer walks in, but Dean’s always been a trooper.

            The second reason is that it means he begins his unspoken, yearly countdown for Sam coming home for Christmas, which makes every day seem four times longer than it already is.

            The third is snow, because. Gross.

            The fourth (and probably most annoying reason) is that all the hipster college kids get it in their heads that it’s their last chance to drink themselves into oblivion before finals, which means a late night for Dean basically every night. There’s little Dean enjoys less than forcibly pushing drunk minors out into the snow, but if there _were_ something Dean enjoyed less, it would be closing by himself at one in the morning and then trudging four blocks in the freezing cold to reach his apartment.

            And so on, and so on. Dean’s dragging by nine o’clock.

            He’s rubbing one hand absently up his bare arm to encourage some sort of friction, trying to get warm, when Jo breezes past him and slaps his lower back. Dean jumps.

            “Tall, dark and handsome, four o’clock,” Jo says just as another customer shuffles in through the front door, shaking a thin dusting of snow off the shoulders of his coat.

            Dean frowns at her and picks up a glass for something to occupy his hands with, holding it up against the overhead light and wiping at a greasy thumbprint. “You can have him. Consider it an act from the kindness of my heart, or whatever.”

            “Aren’t you sweet,” Jo replies, dryly. “No, I was kind of joking, but also not. I’ve got a party of seven that I’m waiting on. I’ll seat him but you’re his server, got it?”

            Dean eyes the assembly line of dirty glasses on the bar and sighs after Jo as she whisks away, expertly balancing a full drink order on a platter.

            Dean sets down the glass and tosses the dirty bar-rag over his shoulder, some voice in the back of his head chiding him that Ellen will probably yell at him later for looking unprofessional, and he’s about to go over for the whole meet-n’-greet, but stops in surprise when the man, quite forwardly, seats himself.

            “Never been to a restaurant before?” Dean mutters to himself, then waits uncertainly because the man is craning his neck now, swiveling around as if searching for someone.

            He’s probably got someone coming, Dean thinks, and goes back to cleaning smudges off glasses that the dishwasher had missed.

            Ten minutes pass and Dean’s tracking Mystery Man out of the corner of his eye, very clinically telling himself he’s entirely uninterested. Because he is. He _isn’t_ interested, he means. Jo had just been fucking with him, obviously. Tall, dark, handsome. He’s not even tall. Dean can’t even see his face. Who knows if he’s handsome.

            Jo drops by his table every once in a while to refill the man’s water and asks a few amicable questions, but the man always shakes his head to her inquiries.

            Dean’s still trying not to stare when Jo breezes back by him only minutes later.

            “Winchester,” she says. “Stop being a chicken-shit and go serve him.”

            “Isn’t he waiting on someone?”

            “Uh, yeah, I dunno. His _server?_ ”

            Dean scowls at her and slings the damp rag over his shoulder again. “Fine. But you’re on dishwasher duty tonight.”

            Jo gives him a hassled look and manages to look as though she’s just stopped herself from sticking her tongue out.

            Dean rubs his hands nervously on the legs of his jeans and heads over to the table with a jaunt in his step, an affect he’s always maintained to get him higher tips. Not that Dean really has a problem getting tips, especially from tipsy middle-aged women. But whatever.

            The man’s got his head ducked, his thumbs weaving out some sort of text message into his iPhone, and Dean notices the shoulders of his trenchcoat are still speckled with wet specks from the snow.

            He drums his knuckles twice on the table, and blue, bewildered eyes meet his. Dean’s breath hitches slightly in his throat.

            Handsome. Goddammit, Jo.

            “Hi,” Dean begins, going on autopilot with his usual schpeel, distracted as he is. “My name is Dean and I’ll be your server tonight. Can I get you started with any drinks?”

            The man’s eyebrows have remained knitted together, and he drops his head in disinterest at Dean’s last inquiry. “I’ll stick with water for now, thank you.”

            Dean stalls, thrown for what to say. “Can I, er, interest you in any of our specials this evening?”

            “No, thank you,” the man says dismissively, and he’s back at texting again, throwing his five o’clock shadow into a bluish light. “I’m waiting on someone.”

            Dean’s heart makes like the Titanic and sinks. Which is pretty dumb, all things considered.

            “Hot date?” he tries lamely, desperate to recover some sense of suaveness from this whole interaction.

            The man’s eyes flicker up to him again through his dark eyelashes. “To be determined.”

            Dean weakly cracks a smile, feeling like a bug under a microscope as the man tilts his chin up to assess him more forwardly. Dean swallows as the man’s eyes narrow a fraction, perhaps in quiet appraisal.

            “Well, keep me posted,” Dean says, and bails. He’s so intent on bailing, actually, that he almost collides with Andy on his way back to the bar.

            “Strike out?” Andy asks, raising one eyebrow as Dean (abjectly) returns to his post at the bar.

            “Something like that,” Dean says glumly, plucking up a glass and scrubbing at it with more force than necessary.

            Andy snorts and trails after him to stick a new order tab in the window. “Better luck next time, champ.”

            “Sure,” Dean mutters, and grumbles when Andy gives him a reassuring, brisk clap on the shoulder and lopes off.

            Five minutes later, Jo’s back, ducking past Dean to refill empty, foamed glasses with a fresh draught of Boulevard. “Heard you flubbed on Dr. Sexy over there.”

            Dean just scowls. “Don’t you and Andy have anything better to do with your time?”

            Jo tosses him a teasing look over her shoulder with a fling of her white-blond hair. “Hey, I was actually invested.”

            Dean’s eyes, of their own accord, slide back to the man at the table, who’s shed his trenchcoat and is leaning forward on his elbows, his long fingers drumming in a measured cadence on the tabletop. “Yeah, well. It’s not like I was actually interested anyway.”

            He’s sort of fixated on the way the man keeps looking around with a semi-lost, semi-dejected expression, like he’s not quite sure of where he is or how he got here.

            “Poor bastard’s gonna get stood up,” Dean mutters to himself, more out of sympathy than anything, because he’s been ditched by dudes and girls alike and it sucks in any context.

            “Someone else’s loss, your gain,” Jo replies with a shrug, overhearing him.

            “Always the opportunist.”

            Jo just flashes Dean what Ellen calls, disapprovingly, her shark grin, which almost always follows either winning Texas Hold ‘Em or, more often, fucking with Dean.

            Dean keeps his eyes downcast, half-heartedly scooping up his rag and scrubbing one of the hoses clean of grease.

            Jo seems to soften in Dean’s peripheral vision. “Hey. Dean. It’s just one guy. Doesn’t mean a thing about you personally, you know? You’ve just got to…get your head back on your shoulders. Get back in the game. It’ll all work out.”

            Dean knows implicitly that she’s referring to Lisa; which, they’d only dated a year and their breakup had been civil as far as breakups go, with one of those whole “best for both of us” diatribes that still somehow manages to make Dean feel like total shit, but still.

            It’s honestly fine.

            He says this to Jo, and she just gives him a quick, affectionate rub on the shoulder and heads off to greet four new customers at the door.

            Dean fills drink orders for people who come up to the bar for the next hour with mechanic half-mindedness; his secondary attention is still fastened on the trenchcoat guy, whose shoulders are slowly sinking inward as the minutes tick by, like a wilting plant. Jo checks in on the guy a few times, clearly so Dean won’t have to, and the man always waves her off, not unkindly.

            Finally, when there’s a lull around 10:30 and Dean’s focus on the guy has reached a somewhat maddening extent, he steels his nerve and heads over to the table again, smiling broadly when the man glances up at his approach.

            “Any luck?” Dean asks, keeping his voice upbeat.

            The man pinches the skin between his eyes, looking suddenly bone-weary. “No. My date apparently had other obligations.”

            “Dude, that sucks,” Dean says empathetically, and taking a risk, he pulls out the opposite chair and takes a seat, keeping his body angled in a way that he knows won’t appear too intrusive. “Are you sure I can’t get you something to drink? Or eat?”

            “Thank you,” the man answers, his mouth pulling up slightly in the corner in wry gratitude, “but I’ve lost my appetite.”

            Dean hesitates before climbing out on another limb. “You really like this girl, huh?”

            The man gives a soft snort, shaking his head. “Actually, no. I don’t know her. My brother set it up for me. I did it more as a solid for him, really, but I’m thinking I should just go home.”

            Dean’s throat closes up but the words are out before he can reign himself in. “You want a drink on the house? Served extra fresh for shitty nights.”

            The man smiles a little more warmly at that, the creases in the corners of his eyes deepening. “That’s very kind of you, but I think I’ll pass. Driving, and all of that.”

            Dean shrugs, keeping the disappointment clear from his voice. “Hey, suit yourself.” He stands abruptly from the table and the man follows quickly after, slinging his coat over his shoulders. “I, uh, hope you have a nice night anyway. Even though, you know.”

            The man offers a slight smile, tilting his head in Dean’s direction. “Thank you. You too.” And he heads out through the door, his fingers prying at his coat collar to flip it upright.

            Dean stares after him a moment, rapping his knuckles absently on the tabletop in thought, before he reaches across to collect the empty glass of water and notices an unfamiliar iPhone in a simple black case beside it.

            Dean blinks and picks it up. For a moment he stares, then against his better judgment, he clicks the unlock button and slides his thumb experimentally across the home screen. A bunch of apps pop up, and the background picture is of the trenchcoat guy, a shorter, slightly doughy-faced dude, and a beaming redheaded woman. They’re all grinning, the girl more widely and toothily than the men, but they look…happy. Dean smiles, despite himself.

            He glances up quickly and peers through the window. He can parse out, in the dim illumination of streetlights, the man bending down to unlock his car on the curb.

            It’s a really stupid idea, one of his admitted many, but Dean thumbs open the contacts and clicks the small plus button in the corner. With slightly shaking fingers, he punches in his number and types quickly “Dean” into the contact information and is out the door, clicking the phone’s lock button as he does.

            “Hey!” he calls out, somewhat breathlessly as he breaks into a jog to reach the man’s car in time. Halfway into the front seat, the man pokes his head out over the roof of the car in confusion. “You—you forgot your—”

            The man’s hand instantly grabs at his empty pocket, adopting a surprised expression. “Oh—thank you so much.”

            Dean comes to a halt in front of the car and holds out the phone. He can see his breaths pouring out of him like smoke in the streetlights, and he resonates with cold and (frankly, embarrassing) adrenaline. “No problem, uh…”

            “Castiel,” the man supplies, sensing the inherent question, and Dean blinks.

            “Cas—Castiel. Yeah, uh, it’s no problem, really.”

            The man, Castiel (who was clearly the product of tragically hippie parents, or something), pockets the phone with a small, warm smile. It touches his eyes again, and some of the cold vibrating through Dean seems to dissipate.

            “Have a good night,” he says, and he’s got a gravelly voice but it’s not entirely unappealing.

            Dean smiles and drops his eyes. “Yeah, you too.”

            He turns to go, not sticking around to watch as the headlights flick on and the car (a 1990 Buick?) rumbles to life. Castiel. Weird. Religious? Probably.

            He bustles back in through the open door and is greeted by Ellen in the doorway, who’s got her arms crossed in what he can only guess is chastisement, and he’s opening his mouth to apologize when she interrupts him with, “Why don’t you head on home, Dean.”

            Dean frowns uncertainly, shaking the light layer of snow from his boots. “Did I do something wrong?”

            “Not at all. Jo said you’d had kind of a rough night.”

            Dean glances up in search of Jo, finding her when she gives a waggle of her fingers and a satisfied grin from her place behind the bar. Dean answers with a small smile, hoping she’ll see it for the gratitude it is.

            “Wow, thanks. Guess I am kinda tired.”

            “Don’t you worry your pretty little head,” Ellen says, with just a trace of dryness. “Pam and I will close up shop.”

            “Thanks, Ellen, seriously,” Dean says, and heads over to the bar to clock out.

            After he gets his coat, he fishes through the pockets in search of his phone, scrolling quickly through his new texts and ignoring the pang of disappointment when he doesn’t find an unfamiliar number.

            He’s got two texts from Sam, which read, “Are u available to pick me up from KCI 12:05 Dec 5?” followed by, “Also do u mind if Jess comes?”

            Dean like Jessica well enough—she’s pretty, sharp, and probably one of the sweetest girls Sam’s dated, but Dean can never shake the strange possessiveness he has of Sam’s time, even as a grown man. He swallows any irrational resentment, because he _honestly_ likes Jess and he knows Sam’s going to marry her, probably soon, and he replies, “Good to both” and hits send.

            The other text is from his mom, which is the daily good night text that he and Sam have been receiving since they first got working cell phones, which reads, “Good night, my angel!” followed by a small emoticon with a halo. Dean’s taken his mother’s recent fixation on applying emoticons to every situation with grace, unlike Sam, who texts him two minutes later without context, “She’s evolving.”

            Dean rolls his eyes and pockets his phone, shrugging on his winter coat and tossing out quick goodbyes to his coworkers. Something in him resists the thought of rolling out of bed tomorrow and pulling himself through the same motions, which he tries to shake because honestly, he likes his job at Harvelle’s, always has. He likes his coworkers, gets good pay, and is pretty damn good at bartending, if he says so himself.

            It’s just kind of different when Sam, boy genius, is at Stanford Law School. Getting good grades, getting a career, getting _married._ Dean’s like a spinning cog stuck in place, directionless, set adrift on an unchanging current.

            But he tries not think about it.

            He also tries very hard not think about Castiel.

            He can lie to himself a little bit when he fails on both counts.

 

 

  **Chapter 2**

            Dean fucking _hates_ the winter.

            “Charlie?” he’s saying into his phone, scowling resentfully at the scraps of busted tire scattered in the snow on the shoulder highway of K10, and seriously, it’s _just_ his shitty, karmic luck to have a tire blow out the _one_ time he doesn’t have a spare, and on the coldest, snowiest, shittiest day of the year. “It’s Dean. I know you’re in class, but hopefully you get this soon? I’m uh, stranded on the side of K10, just outside Eudora, so if you could come get me soon that’d be awesome. Bye.”

            Dean hangs up and jostles in place to keep warm, shoving his hands into his pocket as he bounces slightly on the balls of his feet. Every car that whistles by sends up another gust of blustering, snowy air in his direction, and soon his eyes are watering with the sting of the cold as he squints to search for any sign of the tow truck he’d called. A couple of cars blare their horns at him as they go by, either acknowledging his situation with some sort of sympathy or warning him to get off the shoulder of the highway.

            Dean eventually gives up in his search and ducks back into his car, his teeth chattering in the quiet as the blast of heat sends tingles throughout his limbs. He dully watches wet snow cluster on his windshield for several minutes, the wipers chugging slowly to push it to the side.

            There’s a sudden tap on his window and Dean jumps, thinking, _finally, thank God,_ and cranking down the window. He instantly blinks and short-circuits when concerned, familiar blue eyes peer back at him, and his jaw goes unhinged then snaps shut again because no way, no _fucking_ way.

            Yes, way. Of course, way. Because Dean’s got the entire freaking cosmos against him. Naturally, the one guy to stop and help would be the guy who rejected him without a word or a second glance two weeks back, because Dean’s life is spectacular.

            “You seemed like you needed some help,” the guy starts, then trails off, blinking through the snowfall in recognition. “Wait, I know you. You work at Harvelle’s, don’t you?”

            Dean’s teeth click together, and he finds himself inexplicably annoyed. “Yup. That’s me. The Harvelle’s bartender.”

            Castiel frowns, seeming put-off by Dean’s hostile tone, and Dean knows, rationally, that he’s being childish about it, but there’s still some residual resentment from being completely rejected and ignored.

            “I thought you could use some help,” Castiel says. “Do you need a ride into town?”

            “No,” Dean says, flatly. “The tow truck is on its way and then I’ve got a friend coming. Thanks, though.”

            Castiel bites down on his lip, seeming torn, shuffling his boots in the slush on the road. “Are you sure? It seems kind of terrible to just…leave you here.”

            Dean’s answering smile is frigid, and Castiel is still staring at him, looking disgruntled. “Honestly, I’m fine. You can go about your business.”

            Castiel opens his mouth to reply when a loud horn sounds out from behind them. Dean’s eyes flick up to the rearview mirror and he scowls when he sees the tow truck pulling up behind his and Castiel’s cars, flaring its headlights to alert him.

            Castiel turns back to him, his jaw tightening. “You’re really going to stand out in the freezing cold on the side of the highway where it’s barely visible, where you could potentially perish from either roadside mauling or hypothermia?”

            “Yep,” Dean says stubbornly. “Carry on.”

            Castiel rolls his eyes, managing to look exasperated. “I insist on giving you a ride.”

            “Well, I _insist_ that you leave me alone.”

            Castiel tips his head sideways, seeming twice as lost. “Have I said something to upset you?”

            Dean narrows his eyes at him, debating between asking if he’s being fucked with or telling him off, but the tow truck guy bustles up and pushes Castiel out of the way, asking about Dean’s Triple-A information, blah blah, and moments later, Dean’s watching dejectedly through a whirlwind of snow as the tow truck hauls the Impala away, leaving him stranded with Castiel on the side of the road.

            Castiel turns to him, his hands shoved into the pockets of his trenchcoat, his eyebrows raising. “What now?”

            “I’ll wait,” Dean says, not looking at him. He bunches his hands in his pockets against the cold, feeling the dry stretch of his skin over his knuckles.

            “Fine,” Castiel says, straightening with a stubborn look. “I’ll wait with you.”

            “Seriously,” Dean snaps, swinging his head to look at him irritably, “if this is a pity thing, you can go ahead and spare me the whole ordeal. I’ve been through it before.”

            Castiel squints at him through the snow, clearly bewildered. “Pity for what?”

            Dean expels a sharp breath, his eyes still smarting. “Forget it, honestly.”

            “I’m confused.”

            Dean levels another glance at him, and the perplexity written on his face seems genuine, so he says, reluctantly, “Really, it’s nothing. You caught me in a bad mood.”

            He’s being ridiculous. So what if Castiel had rejected him? It’s not like he’s entitled to be interested in someone he’s not.

            Maybe it’s the post-Lisa effect, Dean reflects.

            “I’m sorry,” Dean says aloud. “I put my number in your phone but you’re not obligated to uh, you know. Seriously, it’s not a big thing.” Dean gives a self-deprecating laugh, suddenly hyper-aware that he’s under doubled scrutiny.

            “Why did you put your number in my phone?” Castiel still sounds lost, and Dean looks at him like he’s an alien. Maybe he is.

            “Because that’s what you do when you’re interested in someone,” he replies, completely dumbstruck. “Dude, that’s like Dating 101.”

            Castiel’s mouth pops open then shuts again, some sort of realization dawning on his face. “ _You’re_ Dean.”

            Dean stares. His face has gone numb from the cold, so he isn’t sure if he’s actually capable of forming an expression. “Uh. Yeah?”

            Castiel gives a slow nod of his head, looking as though he’s contemplating something. “I see. I’ve been an ass to you without even realizing it.”

            Dean feels, somehow, more absurd. “You didn’t know it was my number?”

            “How would I?” Castiel replies, arching his eyebrows. “I assumed it was a work contact. Would you please get in the car now?”

            “Yeah,” Dean says in a small voice, and rounds the side of the car to climb into the shotgun seat. He shoots Charlie a quick text that reads, “nvm on pickup,” knowing she’ll understand it.

            Castiel follows shortly after him, his teeth chattering together as he fumbles with the ignition, and Dean’s still semi-mortified and a good deal guilty that he’d passive-aggressively made Castiel stand out in the Kansan arctic for no reason.

            “I, um,” Dean says, jumping when the car rattles to life at the turn of the key. “Sorry I was an asshole. Wow.”

            “We were mutual assholes,” Castiel concedes, and eases his car back into the flow of highway traffic. “Where do you live?”

            “You can drop me at Harvelle’s,” Dean says. “I can walk back.”

            Castiel frowns. “That’s ridiculous. I can drop you off at your house.”

            “Apartment, actually,” Dean corrects, trying not to sound self-conscious. His apartment’s fine, but it _is_ a just-above-minimum-wage apartment.

            Castiel glances at him sideways, and Dean stares back, trapped in his gaze like a fly in amber, frozen for what to say or do.

            “So,” Castiel says, eyes still fixed on him with uncanny precision. It would be borderline creepy, if weren’t also oddly attractive. “Tell me about yourself, Dean.”

            Dean blinks three times in disbelief. “Are you, like, speed-dating me right now?”

            “More or less,” Castiel says, and Dean snorts.

            “Uh, well.” Dean drums his fingers nervously on the windowsill, which doesn’t go unnoticed by Castiel. Dean’s hand stills. “Not much of a story. I’m 26, born and raised here in Lawrence. Younger brother at Stanford Law. Single mom. Full-time bartender. I fix cars for fun, sometimes for pay. That’s pretty much it.”

            “I’d wager there’s much more than that,” Castiel disagrees, his brow pulling into a small frown.

            Dean laughs nervously, humorlessly. “Uh, no, that’s basically it. You picked a really uninteresting person to eHarmonize.”

            “You picked me, if I recall,” Castiel says, and Dean makes a face but answers, “Okay, fair enough.”

            “Single mom,” Castiel echoes, his gaze refocusing on the road, occasionally tracking the windshield wipers. “Not to pry, but a divorce?”

            “Um, no,” Dean replies, focusing downward on his interlaced hands. “My dad had a stroke when I was a kid.”

            “That’s terrible,” Castiel says, sounding stricken. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

            Dean shrugs and juts out his lower lip. “It’s fine. Don’t remember him all that well, to be honest.” Eager for a subject change, he adds, “What about you?”

            Castiel hesitates a moment before answering, “I was born in Illinois, but I teach at KU. Divorced parents, two brothers, one stepsister. You said your younger brother—”

            “I’ve got to ask,” Dean interrupts him, before the focus can fall back on him. “And I’m sure you get this a lot, but… _Castiel?_ What, were you born on 4/20?”

            Castiel gives a surprised huff of laughter, and his eyes crinkle at the corners in genuine amusement. “Well, that’s the first time it’s been phrased like _that._ ”

            Dean rests his chin on his hand, propped up by his elbow on the windowsill, and grins into his palm.

            “My mother is a woman of faith,” Castiel says. “My brothers are named Michael and Gabriel, after angels, naturally. My father remarried, so I have a stepsister, Anna.”

            “Wasn’t so big on the religion thing, eh?”

            “It was one of the many factors that led to the divorce,” Castiel concedes.

            “Well, I’m going to call you Cas, alright? Makes me feel less…I don’t know, sinful.”

            Cas smiles again. “Okay.”

            “So professor, huh? Damn. You’re young for a college professor. What do you teach?”

            “Philosophy, but my specialization is in cosmology,” Cas answers, and Dean nearly recoils.

            “ _Gross_.”

            “You say tomato,” Cas says with a shrug.

            “Bet you’re a huge hit with the ladies,” Dean ribs him. “Cosmically knowledgeable and all that.”

            Cas gives a small, demurring scowl, and Dean’s extremely entertained to see there’s a hint of pink in his cheeks. “I mean, I wouldn’t say that—where am I turning?”

            “You can get off 23rd and turn on Mass. So…what do you do for fun then?”

            Cas responds with a long, blank look.

            “That’s tragic,” Dean says, shaking his head. “Please tell me you do something for fun.”

            “I…read?”

            “Tragic.”

            “ _Teaching_ is fun,” Cas protests. “Most of my free time is spent grading papers or doing field research.”

            “And going out on dates,” Dean adds, _mostly_ to tease him but kind of to see what else he can extract from him.

            Cas chews down on his lower lip; Dean follows the movement and pretends very hard like he doesn’t. “To be totally honest, this is the first date I’ve had in almost a year.”

            “Dude,” Dean says, “this does _not_ count as a date. We’re driving and having a conversation.”

            “You see my point,” Cas replies, seeming embarrassed.

            “Why don’t you date?” Dean asks, keeping his voice lightly curious. He doesn’t want to sound judgmental or anything.

            Cas shrugs, readjusting his grip on the steering wheel. “I’m incredibly busy. It drives my siblings crazy that I’m still single. They’re constantly trying to remedy it.”

            “Well, hey, if you’re not into dating, you’re not into dating,” Dean says firmly. “You should tell them to lay off.”

            “ _Thank_ you,” Cas says. “I appreciate it.”

            “But, that being said, you should go on a date with me.”

            Cas gives another startled laugh, low in his throat. “Fine. But let it be known that coercive measures were used.”

            “There was no coercing here. I was the one emotionally manipulated into driving home with you, remember?”

            Cas narrows his eyes at him sideways, and Dean imitates the look.

            The gaze quickly shifts from teasing to uncomfortable, given it lasts for like a full seven seconds and Cas’ gaze goes slightly soft and assessing, flickering over Dean’s features with quiet intrigue, and Dean clears his throat and tears his eyes away, back to the road.

            “Oh, shit,” he says quickly. “You wanna take a left on Connecticut.”

            Cas nods, and passes Connecticut.

            Dean swivels up in his seat and cranes his neck toward the rearview window, watching the street sign recede into the distance. “Uh….dude. You missed my street.”

            “My house is nearby,” Cas says, and when Dean looks at him, there’s a small, self-satisfied smile playing at his lips. “I thought we could make a pitstop there.”

            “Why?” Dean asks, then figuratively kicks himself.

            “Because that’s what you do when you’re interested in someone,” Cas replies, turning to look at Dean with raised eyebrows. “Dating 101?”

            “Right,” Dean says weakly, slumping back into his seat. Smooth, Winchester. “Yeah.”

            Cas sounds much more uncertain when he speaks again, a couple moments later. “Is that…okay?”

            “No, yeah—yeah, it definitely is. I’m just.” Dean takes a deep breath through his nose. “I’m a little…rusty with the whole dating thing. Just went through a break-up recently. You know the deal.”

            Cas goes quiet for a moment, perhaps deliberating on how to respond, before he says, “I’m sorry.”

            “Nothing to apologize for. We had a good run. Just wasn’t meant to be, you know?”

            “And do you believe in that?” Cas asks. “Things being meant to be?”

            “Oh no, no. Don’t go all philosophizing on me.”

            Cas’ mouth tilts up in a small grin. “It’s one of my students’ favorite topics. Agency versus determinism in the universe.”

            “Your students are nerds.”

            “How long did you date?” Cas asks.

            “What? Oh. Like a year. Not that long, I guess, but it felt…longer, somehow.”

            Cas casts him another peripheral glance, appraising again, before he says, softly, “If this is too soon, I understand, Dean. I know breakups are difficult to bounce back from—”

            “No,” Dean protests, quickly, “trust me, I’m fine. Just…like I said, rusty.”

            “Well, I’m rusty too,” Cas says. “I guess we’ll make it up as we go.”

            Dean smiles, something in him going mushy with relief he hadn’t realized he’d been waiting for. “Sounds fair.”

            Dean notices, sort of subconsciously, that Cas is directing them closer to KU campus, and it isn’t long before Cas takes another two lefts and parks in front of a small, two-story house with a large oak in front of it. It reminds Dean a little of his parents’ first house, before the fire.

            “I like it,” Dean says, taking in the small white shutters, the bench-swing on the front porch dusted in snow. “Very domestic.”

            “It’s only half-mine,” Cas says. “I split the house payment with my parents. It was their house first.”

            Dean smiles briefly and climbs out of the car, following Cas to the front door. Cas is greeted, rather enthusiastically, by a small gray cat at the screen door, who purrs and rubs itself against Cas’ leg as Cas coos at it and strokes along its pelt. Dean sneezes.

            “Allergic?” Cas asks, glancing up at him from where he’s knelt down to pet it.

            “Unfortunately,” Dean says, and his eyes are already itching.

            “That’s a dealbreaker, then.”

            Dean narrows his eyes at him, not _entirely_ sure that Cas isn’t joking, but he’s pretty sure he’s being teased when Cas glances down at the cat and fights a small smile.

            Cas carries the cat into a different room a moment later, and Dean takes that time to more or less stalk the living room, eyes sweeping along bookshelves packed with old paperbacks and vinyl records and the abstract, minimalist artwork on the sage-green walls.

            “What music do you listen to?” he calls into the other room, running a thumb over the cracked album covers.

            “Uh…” Cas’ reply is hesitant. “Anything, really. I like jazz a lot. And Arcade Fire.”

            “Jazz and Arcade Fire,” Dean repeats to himself under his breath, shaking his head.

            “What about you?” Cas replies, his voice coming closer, and a moment later, he reenters the room with two steaming mugs of coffee. “Cream or sugar?”

            Dean takes the coffee from Cas’ extended hand. “Neither, thanks. And just my dad’s old records, really. Sam’s a lot more hip than I am. He gives me a lot of shit for it.”

            “Sam,” Cas echoes contemplatively, taking a seat on the sofa and setting his mug on the coffee table. “Your brother.”

            “Yep. He gets in in a couple days for Christmas break, actually.” Dean joins Cas on the couch and takes a small sip of coffee, wincing when it scalds the roof of his mouth. “With his girlfriend.”

            Cas hesitates at Dean’s shift in tone, his fingers tapping along his thigh. “You don’t like Sam’s girlfriend?”

            “No,” Dean assures quickly, “I do. Honestly, I do. She’s great. Perfect for him, actually. It’s just.” He shrugs and looks down into his coffee, parsing out his reflection in the dark swirls. “He’s moving on. I’m stuck here. You know.”

            Cas inclines his head sideways, thoughtful. “Why do you feel stuck here?”

            “I dunno. No one wants to stay in the same place they were born their whole life, you know? Let’s talk about something else. Tell me about your life. Tell me about your cat.”

            “Can I ask you a question before we change subjects?” Cas asks. “What do you _want_ to do?”

            Dean tries to laugh, and the attempt sounds pretty horrible even to his own ears. “Not sure. I think that’s part of my problem—look, it’s nothing personal, but I have this kind of unspoken rule where I don’t talk about emotional baggage on the first date. Is that cool? It’s worked out pretty well for me so far.”

            Cas smiles, leaning back into the sofa cushion. “This is a date?”

            “No. Shut up.”

            “I thought we were just having a conversation.”

            “Stop trying to get my problems out of me,” Dean complains, swatting at Cas’ leg and thrilling when his open palms lands on his (toned? _Christ._ ) inner thigh. “Jeez, at least buy me dinner first.”

            “Okay,” Cas says. “I will, if that’s what it takes.”

            Dean plants his face into his hands, feeling his skin warm against his palms. “Alright. Fine. Subject switch. What about your family?”

            Cas pauses, then very deliberately sets his coffee mug on a coaster before speaking again. “My brother Michael is the eldest. He…quite eagerly inherited my father’s business firm. We don’t…see eye-to-eye on a lot of things.”

            Dean suddenly remembers, randomly, Cas’ phone background. He doesn’t remember seeing a fourth person.

            “My brother Gabriel is also older than me. He has a very…acquired personality, but we get along well enough. He’s currently unemployed, which is a source of aggravation for my father. I’m actually closest with my younger stepsister Anna. She’s a journalism major at Northwestern.”

            Dean nods, and purses his lips to blow softly across the surface of his coffee before he speaks again. “What about your dad? Are you close with him?”

            Cas’ mouth curls up at the edge, a bitter expression that takes Dean by surprise. “I wouldn’t say so. He was very invested in his business when I was growing up, so he was absent much of the time. I’m closer to my mother. Besides.” Cas scoops up his mug again and cradles it between his hands, perhaps for something to occupy himself with. “Michael was always my father’s favorite, anyway.”

            “Dude, that sucks,” Dean says. “I’m sorry.”

            “It’s an old wound,” Cas replies, and Dean isn’t quite sure who he’s reassuring with the words. “It scabbed over long ago. Teaching wasn’t on my father’s agenda for me, so he responded accordingly. Didn’t find it pertinent to attend my college graduation.”

            “ _Shit._ What an asshole.”

            “He’s fine,” Cas disagrees, shaking his head in a way that seems slightly deprecating. “I’m making it out to be much worse than it actually is. All in all, I’m happy with my family. Or…I’m not _un_ happy. I’m far more interested in your story.”

            Dean rolls his eyes, thumbing at a tear in his jean pocket with his free hand. “I already told you. I don’t have a story.”

            Cas sighs, sounding frustrated. “You don’t give yourself enough credit where credit is due, Dean.”

            Dean thinks he says that with a lot of confidence for someone who barely knows him, but also thinks it’s probably rude to contradict him. “Seriously, Cas, I swear. I’ve worked a bartending job here for two years. Didn’t have the money to go to school. I have dinner with my mom every Sunday. I’m allergic to cats. I like my coffee black. Nothing novel-worthy.”

            Cas frowns. “You weren’t able to go to college, but Sam was?”

            Dean keeps his eyes lowered, his gaze catching on an old, faded wine stain in the light shag carpet. His coffee-mug is returned to the tabletop to free his hands. “He got better grades. More scholarships. I gave him my share of savings so he could go.”

            Cas sounds shocked when he speaks again. “ _Dean_.”

            “What?” Dean says defensively, clasping his hands over his knees and clenching, tightly. “Going to college meant a hell of a lot more to Sam than it did to me.”

            “What did your mom say to that?” Cas asks, still seeming appalled.

            “She tried to talk me out of it—I mean, she wanted me to go and of course she felt bad that she didn’t have the money for the both of us, but what can she do, you know? She’s a single working mom. I could work for all of us.”

            Cas rubs a hand over his jaw, and when Dean chances a close, nervous glance at him, his eyes are slitted in thought.

            “What?” Dean demands again, hating the harshness in his voice, the transparent weakness.

            “Nothing,” Cas says. “You’re far more incredible than I suspected you to be, and I’m trying to process it.”

            “ _Dude_ ,” Dean protests, and he feels the tips of his ears flare up in embarrassment, probably already cherry-red, knowing him. “Cut it out. I’m not.”

            Cas observes him in that open, probing way he has, like he’s filing things away for further study. “You’re blushing.”

            “Stop it,” Dean groans, burying his face in his hands again.

            Cas chuckles—actually _chuckles—_ warm and low in his throat, almost certainly at Dean’s expense. “More coffee?”

            “Ah, I’d like to, but I’ve actually got a shift at 3. Can I hitch a ride?”

            “Of course,” Cas says. “I’ll get my coat.”

            They don’t talk all that much for the ride to Harvelle’s; on his end of silence, Dean’s rolling the word “incredible” around in his head, his emotions ricocheting somewhere between heated embarrassment and a warm, bubbly feeling that has him smiling intermittently throughout his shift. He feels ten pounds lighter on his feet. His interactions with his customers don’t feel quite as forced or intrinsically miserable—which, of course, his coworkers notice almost instantly.

            “ _Dude_ ,” Jo says at one point during the night, her eyes wide with disbelief after Dean serves someone at the bar with near manic energy. “Who slipped happy pills in your drink this morning?”

            “No one did,” Dean says, bringing his eyebrows together in a frown to recover some solemnity, but within seconds he’s thinking of Cas’ parting words as he’d left the car, which were, “I’ll call you for _real_ this time. Maybe,” and he’s grinning like a fool again, keeping his head ducked so Jo won’t see and give him shit about it.

            “Boy’s in love,” he overhears her say to Andy later, and fuck, he thinks, maybe he is.

 

 

 **Chapter 3**  

            Cas doesn’t call. He texts.

            He texts Dean random-ass things, like strong points his students made in class, or restaurants he’s heard good things about. At one point, somewhat lost for how to reply to Cas’ intermittent stream-of-conscious updates, Dean texts back, teasingly, _U realize this isn’t twitter right?_

            For a few hours, Dean doesn’t receive a response, and he checks in on his phone for Cas’ reply with incessance he’d never admit to throughout his shift, nervous he’d somehow offended him. He’s crunching his way through the snow collecting like cotton in the street-gutters, halfway home, when his phone lights up with Cas’ name.

_What is a twitter?_

Dean rolls his eyes and pockets his phone, almost certain that Cas is fucking with him, and when he tumbles into bed moments later (which is, in fact, a large, lumpy, unmade mattress located next to the furnace), he struggles with the impulse to text back. He doesn’t want to seem overeager or anything.

            Sam flies in the next day, Jess in tow, and Dean’s waiting in the terminal when he lands. Sam’s whole face lights up like the 4th of July when he spots Dean, and Dean isn’t sure whether to open his arms for an embrace—despite their closeness growing up, there’s always a strange, residual awkwardness when they reunite—but Sam beelines for him and near-crushes him. Which has got Dean nearly bending backwards in half at the height difference and holy shit, how is this kid still _growing_?

            “Welcome home, Sammy,” he manages to wheeze out through his lungs being constricted, and Sam pulls back with a wide, toothy smile, readjusting the strap of his backpack on his shoulder and looking for all the world like the universe’s happiest, most ideal college student. Dean glances past Sam to where Jess is shifting in place just behind his shoulder, offering Dean a shy, uncertain smile, and Dean says warmly, “Good to see you, Jess,” and pulls her into a hug too. Jess starts with surprise but after a millisecond of hesitation, her arms come up to hug back, and she laughs, quietly and genuinely, against Dean’s shoulder.

            “No place like home,” Sam says with sarcasm, his nose wrinkling at the familiar, somewhat rubbery smell of the Kansas City airport.

            “None of that attitude when we get to the house,” Dean warns him, releasing Jess. “Mom’s gone all out on the Christmas cheer. You might break her heart.”

            Sam smirks at him. “Did you finally agree to join in her holiday bake-a-thon?”

            “ _No,_ ” Dean says, scowling defensively, “but we both know I’d kick ass.”

            “It’s true,” Sam concedes to Jess, shrugging as though he can’t deny it.

            Dean’s phone dings with a text, and forgetting his cool, he yanks it out of his pocket and almost fumbles it in his eagerness. He experiences a short sinking sensation when he sees it’s from Mom, a simple, _Sammy in yet?_ and he answers with a quick affirmative before sliding it back in his jacket and turning back to Sam.

            Sam is staring at him with his eyebrows lifted incredulously, one of the corners of his mouth pulling up in a slow grin that Dean already resents. “So, uh. New fling, then?”

            “No,” Dean retorts, but Sam sees through it instantly and his grin breaks into a full-fledged, triumphant beam. “Shut your face. We’re doing baggage-claim, right now.”

            Sam lets it drop, but Dean’s absolutely positive he hasn’t heard the end of it.

            Most of the ride home is filled with Sam and Jess chattering at Dean eagerly about Stanford life, filling him in on various anecdotes and information, buoying off each other to continue stories interspersed with laughter, and Dean soaks it up, honestly. He’s never seen Sam this happy, and it dissolves some of the heaviness in his chest and almost all of the uncertainty he’d been self-constructing on his drive to the airport.

            Jess hangs back later that night to give Dean and Sam some personal time, opting to stay home with Mary with a knowing smile, and naturally, their destination is Harvelle’s, where Sam is greeted like the freaking crown prince from everyone on staff. Ellen and Jo are always thrilled to see Sam, having known him since he was still in Huggies, and Dean’s like, 92% positive Pamela has a thing for him, despite the age difference. Sam and Andy had also been pretty tight in high school, so Dean leaves them to chat for a few minutes while they earnestly catch up.

            “Sam’s back,” Ellen says to Dean in an aside, tailed by a warm grin. “How about that?”

            “It’s great,” Dean says, his eyes focused on Sam rocking with laughter at something Andy’s said. “Yeah, honestly, it’s…great.”

            Later that night, after Dean’s had a few beers and Sam’s yammered on for a good half an hour about Jess, mostly, he says, his eyes bright, “Alright, what’s the deal, Dean?”

            “What’s the deal with what?” Dean asks.

            “You know.” Sam makes a vague, encompassing hand gesture. “ _You._ You’re…different, man. Seriously, is it this girl you’re seeing?”

            “Different how?” Dean echoes, still stuck on the first part of Sam’s inquiry.

            Sam shrugs, tapping the base of his empty beer bottle against the tabletop. “I dunno. You just are. You seem so much more…” Sam’s eyes narrow in consideration before he decides on, “Zen.”

            Dean’s lower lip hooks down in a noncommittal expression. “Well, uh, nothing’s changed. Same job, same apartment. I don’t know why I’d be any different.”

            “No,” Sam insists. “Something’s changed. You seem…a lot happier, Dean.” His voice drops into softer tones to avoid being overheard by Jo and Pamela, who are lounging at the next table over with their eyes glued to football game on the widescreen TV above the bar. “I was really worried about you for a bit. Mom and I both were.”

            “Well, I’m fine,” Dean says. “I’ve always been fine. I think you’re just making shit up in your head.”

            “I’m not,” Sam replies. “And I’m gonna figure it out.”

            “Well, good luck with that,” Dean says sardonically.

            Ellen stops by again with another round of drinks, and while she and Sam start up a discussion about the Chiefs’ season, Dean’s thinking. _Is_ he different? The only thing that’s changed is Cas, and he barely knows the guy, really. Surely that’s not enough alone for a change noticeable enough that Sam’s calling him out for it.

            Dean reasons it must just be the contrast compared to how he’d been after Lisa, which had been. Yeah, not good. But maybe he has changed, a little bit. After all, he’s got nothing to be sad about, really, he thinks, at least in this current moment. Sammy’s in town, his mom’s happy and in her element, he loves-slash-tolerates his coworkers.

            Cas.

            Dean sighs and checks his phone, somewhat relieved to see a blank screen reflecting back at him. He’s not sure how he’d reply to Cas right now, anyway.

            “You see?” Sam says challengingly to Ellen, and his voice has hitched up to an irritating volume, like it always does when he’s had too much to drink. “Right there. I swear Dean’s in a secret courtship with someone or something.”

            “Mhmmmm,” Ellen says, nodding knowingly, her eyes fixed on Dean in solemn teasing.

            “Both of you, shut up,” Dean grouses, plunking his phone face-down on the table and taking a long pull of the beer Ellen’s set beside him. “It’s honestly nothing.”

            “Well, let’s toast to nothing,” Sam suggests, raising his beer in a high salute.

            Maybe it is nothing. But Dean likes to think it’s _something._

            “To nothing,” Dean agrees, clinking his beer bottle with Sam’s.

\--

            It’s a Friday night and Dean’s half-dead on his feet by 10 o’clock.

            He’s leaning forward with his elbows on the bartop, his eyes sliding drowsily shut, but he jumps awake when Jo cracks a towel against his ass.

            “Sleep later,” she says, widening her eyes in warning. “We have customers.”

            Dean, his cheek still distorted where it’s being propped up forcibly by his hand, groans quietly when he sees a draggle of college students huddling in from the cold, dripping all over the floor and yelling raucously to one another.

            He fills their orders as quickly and efficiently as he can, his hands nearly slipping in the condensation on the cold glasses in his exhaustion, and the kids treat him disdainfully, as they always do. They’re _career_ -bound. They don’t have patience for those who didn’t make it.

            Dean, out of spite, checks all of their IDs.

            A couple more people stop at the bar, waiting with impatience for Dean’s attention, and Dean works quickly, half-conscious as he is.

            “Hello, sir, can I help you?” he asks the next customer without looking up, sliding another beer down the bar to a waiting student who’s already handed him a credit card.

            “What does the house recommend?” asks a familiar, deep voice, and Dean’s neck nearly cracks, he snaps up so quickly. Cas, sopping trenchcoat and all, water beaded in his dark hair, is smiling at him with nothing short of amusement, and Dean straightens clumsily, wiping his hands on his jeans.

            “You’re here,” he says, dumbfounded, his tired brain too fizzled to construct something more eloquent.

            “I am,” Cas agrees, sliding into the bar-stool and dropping his hands on the bartop. “I thought you might want some company at work.”

            Dean grins despite himself, well aware he looks like ridiculous doing so and that Jo and Andy are starting to whisper, staring with wide-eyed glee in their direction, but he honestly, truly doesn’t care.

            “Well, you picked the shittiest time of night to watch me be a good employee,” Dean says. “Talk about the longest day ever.”

            “I have faith in you,” Cas says solemnly, and Dean snorts.

            Another bratty college kid bustles up beside Cas, rapping his knuckles against the countertop to get Dean’s attention, like he’s summoning a pet, and demands another pint of whatever shitty cheap beer he’d been drinking. Dean fills the order, his face slightly heated at the consciousness that Cas is following his every moment, assessing him. He, mercifully, manages not to fuck it up, and the student slaps down a five-dollar bill and takes it without a word, heading toward his friends.

            “Charming people you get in here,” Cas notes, his eyes following the student disapprovingly as he returns to his seat. “I think he’s in one of my classes.”

            “You might have to bully him a bit,” Dean says.

            “I might.”

            Dean leans himself on his elbows, propping himself up across from Cas. “You want anything? On the house, obviously.”

            “I was thinking I’d wait till you got off your shift,” Cas says, leafing his hand through his damp hair and leaving it tangled at odd angles.

            Dean bites his lip to keep from smiling. “Usually we all stick around after close to have a few drinks and watch the game. You down for that?”

            Cas tilts his head consideringly. “Yes, I would be down.”

            “Okay,” Dean says, nonchalant, “cool.”

            The hour left in Dean’s shift, somehow, drags even longer, even with Cas there to ease some of the time. He finds himself filled with a clenching, nameless anxiety that expands his chest and makes it as tight and hollow as a drum. Each time he ducks back into the kitchen to retrieve ice or an order from Ellen or Pamela, he always reemerges convinced Cas has up and left. And each time, he’s still there, either fiddling with his phone or glancing around in bored curiosity, and Dean’s heart gives this giddy little leap like it’s about to lurch out of his ribcage.

            There’s something…charged between them, is what it is. He can’t really explain it, but he feels it every time they make eye contact, like sparks snapping off a bonfire, and it makes Dean lightheaded. Which, fairly enough, could also be the bone-deep exhaustion and the four cups of coffee he’d downed on his break a few hours ago. Sexual tension and coffee. Maybe his life could be a novel after all.

            _Finally,_ after several minutes of Dean very thoroughly doing his closing duties and gazing at Ellen innocently as he does them, Ellen takes mercy on him and lets him clock out. He can sense Jo and Andy making fun of him as he practically bounces his way around the kitchen, but he happily raises two middle fingers in their direction and heads out into the main restaurant, where Pamela’s already shutting the blinds to signify they’re closed.

            Dean joins Cas at the bar with a somewhat uncertain smile and says, “Thanks for waiting.”

            Cas shrugs. “I don’t mind. I like watching you work. You’re good at it.”

            Dean scoffs and thinks, a bit despairingly, that Cas needs to stop doling out compliments when he has no idea how to take them without getting horrifically flustered. “It’s just bartending.”

            “Well, you’re good at just bartending.”

            Dean slips onto the barstool next to Cas, opening his mouth to reply, but Ellen takes that moment to swing out from the kitchen, already requesting their drink orders as she keeps her eyes glued to Dean. Cas wouldn’t notice anything amiss, but Dean can detect the small, smug grin pulling at Ellen’s lips, and he glares at her warningly the entire time she sweet-talks Cas, who responds to it as best as one can, when Ellen Harvelle turns her charm on.

            “Mom, leave the poor guy alone,” Jo protests, sliding past Ellen to fill their drinks. “You’re going to scare him away.”

            “Wouldn’t want that,” Ellen says, grinning, “given he puts Dean here in such a good mood.”

            “Oh my God,” Dean mutters, suddenly and viscerally hating all of them. Ellen laughs at Dean’s vitriolic expression and rubs her hand warmly along his, a show of quiet affection, but it doesn’t dissolve the flush in his face or his embarrassment as Cas turns to him with the trace of a pleased smile.

            “They’re just,” Dean says, weakly. “Ignore them, please.”

            “Alright,” Cas says, bringing his drink closer and trapping it within the circle of his fingers. “But they make some compelling arguments.”

            Dean looks at Ellen’s back darkly and takes a long, hard swig of his drink.

            “So Sam’s in town,” Cas says conversationally. “How’s that been?”

            “It’s great, honestly,” Dean replies. “Never been better to have him back.”

            “That’s good,” Cas replies, and his next question is drowned out by Andy and Pamela taking up a chorus of angry yells and jeers at whatever basketball game that’s on TV. They’re already halfway into their drinks, and are scowling at the scoreboard with both sets of their arms crossed and deep-set sulks already clouding their expressions.

            “Ha,” Dean says, “yeah, they’re, uh—invested.”

            “We can watch the game,” Cas suggests.

            “You like sports?”

            Cas smiles haltingly. “Not particularly. But your coworkers seem to enjoy them immensely.”

            “Fine,” Dean says, his throat dry, “we can watch,” and his gaze fastened unwaveringly on the way Cas’ fingers beat out a restless tattoo on the countertop—the only tell that suggests Cas might be as nervous as Dean feels. Dean wonders if he can sense the same soft, unspoken edge of tension, threading between them and tightening, rapidly.

            They watch the game, and as Dean and Cas move on to their third beer, then their fourth, Dean notices something odd that had somehow escaped his previous attention; somehow, his and Cas’ barstools have drawn closer together, pulled in whenever Cas leans over to say something low in Dean’s ear. Their hands are aligned next to each other’s on the bartop in perfect symmetry, and while Cas watches the game with half-hearted interest, Dean focuses his attention on that, on their fingers detached by a mere millimeter.

            Dean’s eyes flick up to survey Cas peripherally; he’s got his lower lip balanced on the rim of his beer bottle, and as Dean watches, he absently begins to roll his lip against the bottle’s edge. Then, right in front of Dean’s incredulous eyes, his tongue darts out to lap at a stray droplet that runs down the bottle’s neck.

            Jesus Christ.

            “Cas,” he says, his voice hoarse, and Cas turns at the sound of his name, his eyes half-lidded in sleepiness. Before he loses the nerve, Dean asks, much too quickly to be smooth, “Do you want to get out of here?”

            Cas blinks for a moment, seeming much more awake now, and then he nods wordlessly and sets his bottle down on the bar. “I’d like that, yes.”

            Dean waves at Ellen until he catches her attention, and he makes a gesture toward the front door; she grins in understanding and nods, waving him off. Jo, Andy, and Pamela are far too riveted on the game to notice Dean and Cas’ departure, which, Dean thinks, is _definitely_ for the best.

            “Are you able to drive?” Dean asks when they get outside. Cas turns to stare at him, blinking twice in confusion. “I mean, have you had too much to drink?”

            Cas frowns, and Dean thinks (probably alcohol-induced) that he looks somewhat ethereal like this, haloed in the hollow streetlight, the yellow air misted in a light drizzle that leaves Dean soaked through within seconds.

            “I think I can drive if I have a little time to work it off,” Cas says. “I’ll walk you back to your apartment. I should be fine to drive after I’ve walked a little ways.”

            “No,” Dean says quickly, “seriously, you don’t have to, and I don’t want you walking back by yourself, especially when the weather’s shitty—”

            “Dean,” Cas says, a smile in his voice. “I’ll be fine. I _want_ to walk you back.”

            Dean nods, breathing out slowly as that nervous energy racks up inside him again, burning straight through any exhaustion that had leadened him earlier. They start to walk, and the streets are silent save for the occasional slick crunch of car tires on the wet asphalt.

            Cas tips his head back to fog his breath against the streetlights, his gaze fixed on the night sky. “You can’t see the stars tonight.”

            “Too rainy,” Dean agrees, pulling his jacket around himself tighter.

            Cas sounds plaintive when he speaks again. “So my family is coming to my house for Christmas. It’s, sadly, the last thing I want for Christmas.”

            “That blows,” Dean says with sympathy, even if he can’t actually relate. Having his mom and Sam with him for the holidays has always been his favorite part of it all. “Anna will be there, right?”

            “Yes,” Cas allows, and gives a soft hiccup. “But it means I’ll have to endure my father and Michael’s constant….disapproval.”

            “Hey, fuck ‘em,” Dean says, and his loud voice echoes off the quiet street, bouncing off small, dark houses. “Seriously, fuck them, Cas. You can come to my place for Christmas.”

            Cas laughs reluctantly, and sounds wistful when he says, “If only.”

            “No, seriously. Bring your sister and your other annoying brother, ditch the other two. My mom would be happy to have you over. Everyone from Harvelle’s is gonna be there too.”

            Cas tilts his head sideways to look at Dean with that intrigued warmth again, his smile a curved shadow in the cast of the streetlights. “Thank you, Dean.”

            “Not a problem.”

            Dean turns on his street, Cas following after. They’re quiet for several moments, but it isn’t uncomfortable; Dean feels strangely at ease, something in him trembling with steady warmth, with anticipation. Maybe it’s the alcohol, or the sharpness of the cold, maybe both.

            Dean heads up the three crumbling steps to his apartment, already fumbling with his keys, his fingers raw—his mom keeps telling him to wear gloves to work—and Cas follows uncertainly after him and stops, right beside him, hovering much too close. Dean’s heartbeat picks up into a jackhammer rhythm. He turns to look at Cas, and Cas catches his eyes in the dark, the softest wicks of light in the dim illumination of the streetlights, and for a moment they’re suspended, caught in a riptide of unworded tension.

            “Dean,” Cas says, gravel-deep, and he opens his mouth to say something else, but Dean makes a decision and sticks to it firmly. He pulls Cas in by the lapel of his trenchcoat and kisses him with his mouth still open, his teeth gently catching on Cas’ lower lip, and Cas goes very still underneath him, his breath warm and sweet as it floods Dean’s mouth, and for a moment Dean’s struck dumb with terror, mentally scrambling, certain he’s done something wrong, fucked this up beyond repair, and he pulls back, his breathing ragged. Cas is staring at him with glazed eyes, his lips still parted, slick and the slightest bit swollen.

            “I’m sorry,” Dean says in the same breath, but he’s still got that nameless pulse resonating in him, primed to swallow Cas whole, and he thinks he might go fucking crazy if it’s just him that feels it. His mouth is warm, tingling. “Christ, Cas, I’m sorry—”

            Cas just steps forward, hooks one hand on the curve of Dean’s jaw, and pulls him in again, and Dean practically melts into it when Cas’ mouth finds his, a hot push-pull of teeth and tongue, and it’s fucking _freezing_ and he’s making out with Cas in the cold rain and he’s fumbling with his apartment keys again and he’s so fucking aroused he can’t even think straight.

            “I think,” Dean says, breathlessly, parting his lips from Cas’ so he can speak in short gasps, “you might be too drunk to drive home tonight.”

            “Agreed,” Cas replies with a clear attempt at civility, but he sounds completely winded. “It’d be unsafe.”

            “Totally dangerous. You could wreck the car.”

            “I could kill someone,” Cas agrees, his eyes on Dean’s mouth, and the hunger in his dark gaze makes Dean go jelly-kneed.

            “You should stay the night,” Dean says, “for, you know, your own safety.”

            “Yes, safety,” Cas says, and somehow they’re kissing again while Dean attempts to jimmy the key in the lock without breaking physical contact, suddenly ravenously desperate to preserve all the warm pockets of contact where their bodies touch.

            He breaks away with a moaned curse to focus on unlocking the door, and Cas’ mouth moves to his neck before Dean yanks him in through the open door, their wet coats peeled off each other three steps into the apartment. Dean’s backing them up toward his bedroom when he trips violently on something wooden and hard, and his grip on Cas’ elbows nearly sends them both toppling to the ground.

            “The fuck is that?” Cas gasps, recovering his balance and hauling Dean up, and Dean hasn’t ever heard Cas curse before but he thinks he likes it like, a lot.

            “I knocked over a shelf this morning,” Dean says, too turned on to be embarrassed. “I warned you this place is a hellhole.”

            “Don’t care,” Cas says, and Dean feels nimble fingers working at the buttons on his shirt with surprising dexterity.

            “I also don’t have a bed,” Dean says through kisses so fierce they seem bruising, “so—it’s a mattress—sorry about—”

            “Stop talking,” Cas says, his voice pitched low, and Dean nearly rams them into the bedroom doorframe in their mad, dark, half-drunken scramble to reach a flat surface.

            Dean’s quickly stripped free of his damp shirt, and Cas’ hands, still cold from outside, grip at his bare sides, making him jump.

            “Is this okay?” Cas asks, sounding wrecked as he struggles with his belt buckle. “I mean, are you sure—”

            “Dude,” Dean says, working his own pants free and dropping them in a wet bunch, “I wanted your thighs around my head like, yesterday.”

            “Direct,” Cas notes, his fingers threading in Dean’s short hair, “but strangely arousing.”

            They lose the rest of their wet clothes on the way to Dean’s mattress, which probably looks downright ridiculous given they’re both trying to keep their mouths connected while also stumbling, blind-drunk in the pitch-darkness. The backs of Dean’s ankles find the edge of the mattress and he goes down on his back, Cas tangled in the open V of his legs, and for a moment, it’s nothing but kissing, its desperate, wild fervor receding and building toward something far more incendiary. Dean can feel his limbs resonating with a slow heat, both from the blast of the furnace and from Cas’ body warmth, and after several moments, when it’s pretty clear where this whole thing is going, Cas pulls back, chewing down on his lip uncertainly.

            “You know how I said that I’m, er, rusty?” Cas asks, sounding nervous in the dark, and Dean can make out the silver curve of his cheekbone in the moonlight that fractures in through the blinds.  “It’s, uh, been a while since—”

            “Hey, me too,” Dean says, and his voice is embarrassingly high-pitched. “It’s fine.”

            Cas gives a single nod. “Okay.” He swallows, still looking anxious, and—well, it’s fucking endearing, is what it is.

            “Dude, there’s absolutely no way you could mess this up for me,” Dean assures him, fighting a smile. “Seriously.”

            Cas nods. “Right.”

            “Although, y’know, it is kind of cute,” Dean teases him. “Seeing you get nervous about something.”

            Cas retaliates to that statement by going down on him, and Dean, well, loses the rudimentary function of speech for a few moments.

            “Wait,” he gasps out after a couple minutes of Cas more or less deep-throating him, and his voice tails suspiciously on a petulant whine. “I want to get you off first.”

            Cas smirks, and his voice is just… _terrible_ when he speaks again. “Not a chance.”

            Fucking awful. Dean’s harder than he’s ever been in his miserable life.

            “Besides,” Cas says, right before swallowing Dean’s cock again, “it’s not a competition.”

            Which of course, makes it a competition, but Dean never stood a fighting chance against Cas anyway—he lasts another two minutes before he comes with a long groan, his toes curling into the sheets as Cas eagerly sucks him down, and Dean manages to choke out, “You fucker,” before he collapses back into the mattress, completely wrung out.

            Cas, sporting the worst (by which he means best) sex-hair he’s ever seen, thanks to Dean raking his fingers through it, gives him the most smug smile when he pulls back, and Dean scowls at him without any real heat behind it when Cas hovers over him again.

            “You’re going to regret that,” Dean says in dark teasing, locking his hands on Cas’ hips and giving a small, insistent tug downward.

            “Make me,” Cas answers, and maybe Dean blacks out or something from sheer post-coital arousal because the next thing he knows, he’s sucking Cas off like the will of God and Cas has got both hands curled painfully tight his hair, making such a racket that Dean knows his neighbors are going to file complaints, and when Cas warns, strangely strangled, “Dean,” he’s ready for it, pushing his hands down on Cas’ hips to steady him and giving one greedy swallow.

            Dean’s expecting Cas to curse him out, but he just gives this loud, heated sigh and snaps his hips up a final time, coming down Dean’s throat with a hitched, helpless whimper.

            Dean pulls off seconds later and raises his eyebrows at Cas, completely certain he’s won when Cas goes basically boneless on the mattress, staring glazedly up at the ceiling.

            “You’re going to kill me,” is all Cas says, and it’s spoken in the cadence of weak surrender so Dean considers it a triumph.

            Dean crawls up the length of the mattress to curl into Cas’ side, and Cas pulls him in for warmth. He’s pretty sure if Cas were a giant cat that he’d be purring at this point, because as Dean strokes a hand through his damp hair he rocks slightly into it, his eyes drifting shut with contentment. For several moments, they’re quiet, breathing together in the lull of the humming furnace.

            “You ever think we did this a little backwards?” Dean asks eventually. “I’m pretty sure we haven’t actually had a date yet.”

            Cas hums, low in his throat. “True.”

            “My good looks did you in, in the end.”

            “Also true.”

            Dean snorts, then ducks his head into Cas’ warm shoulder. “This is nice. This is really nice. It’s been a long time since…you know.”

            “I do know,” Cas says quietly, tracing one finger along the curve of Dean’s bicep.

            What Dean wants to say is, _I like you so much and it scares me shitless._ Because he does. He’s in what he refers to as, when it rarely occurs, the danger zone, which is where he’s at high, high risk of falling for Cas ass-over-heels, or whatever the saying is. Not in the infatuated, casual-sex-post-drinking way either. Like the terrifying, intimate, please-don’t-ever-leave-me type which is, obviously, exactly the type that Dean is afraid of.

            Cas would be easy if he were a pretty face and a fling on the weekends. That might be even what he _needs,_ after Lisa. But somehow he ended up here, held loosely in the cradle of Cas’ arms and in that hazy nirvana state where he doesn’t want to ever leave, couldn’t if he tried, and Dean kind of hates himself for his own masochism.

            Cas, as if sensing his racing thoughts, presses a kiss to Dean’s nose and Dean thinks, yep, this is going to be an ass-slide aaaaaall the way down to the bottom of this mountain. This is going to be the most undignified, ungraceful, hopeless emotional ordeal he’s ever put himself through and he’s going to secretly relish every minute of it, if it means getting to be with Cas for just a little bit longer.

            “Dean,” Cas whispers a few moments later. “Stop overthinking it.”

            “How’d you know?” Dean asks, surprised.

            “I’m a telepath,” Cas answers solemnly in the dark, which earns him a flick to the nipple. “ _Ow._ I can tell by your body language. You’re as rigid as a corpse and your breathing is practically hyperventilatory.”

            “Thank you, Bill Nye,” Dean says dryly, and he can basically hear Cas roll his eyes. “Nah, I’m honestly good, Cas. Just…y’know, trying not to freak myself out.”

            “Because of the potential relationship thing?” Cas guesses.

            “Because of the potential relationship thing, yeah.”

            “Hmm,” Cas murmurs, thoughtfully. “Anything else?”

            “Yeah,” Dean says, pausing for effect. “Is your mom gonna condemn me to hell for banging an angel?”

            Cas slaps his arm, hard, prompting a laugh from Dean.

            “My mother does _not_ to be informed about my sex life,” Cas says in a haunted voice. “Or _I_ might be the one going to hell. She’d drag me there herself.”

            “Well, hey, I’d go with you. I’d pull you right back out.”

            “A love forged in hellfire,” Cas answers, all sarcasm, and Dean tries not to go paralytic at the word “love” dropped so casually just because of his…intimacy-phobia.

 _Be cool,_ he tells himself frantically.

            “Yeah,” he responds, in a distinctly un-cool voice.

            Cas laughs, quietly, and hooks one of his calves around Dean’s so that their legs are tangled together. Dean takes a deep breath at the contact, which tails on a humming sigh when Cas buries his face in Dean’s chest. He decides he’ll get up early tomorrow, be a good host—maybe scramble some eggs and pick up knocked-over furniture.

            Cas drifts off a bit later; Dean can tell by the slow, fluctuating roll of his shoulders in the light threading in from the streets outside. Dean resolves to stay awake just a while longer to think things through, but he closes his eyes and the next thing he knows he’s blinking awake to bright, dazzling morning light, the sheets next to him rumpled, cold, and empty.

            Dean shoots up from the mattress, last night’s events scrambling and rescrambling in his brain. He can still taste Cas in his mouth, and he thinks, with a lurch of despair, that this isn’t the first time he’s been left the morning after but _fuck,_ this one he somehow hadn’t been expecting.

            He takes a deep breath, trying to steel himself against both shock and disappointment, then blinks in surprise when he smells coffee brewing.

            Dean casts around helplessly for a pair of ratty sweatpants and hitches them over his hips, padding his way to the kitchen on the cold hardwood floors, and something in him gives this ballooning, blissful leap when he sees Cas, in shirtless and boxer attire, through the kitchen doorway, frowning down and poking a spatula at eggs frying on the stove.

            Dean leans one shoulder on the doorframe, hiding the giddy relief in his voice when he says, “This is domestic.”

            Cas jumps at the sound of his voice, then glances over at him sheepishly, pausing a moment to rake over Dean’s state of undress. “I thought I’d make breakfast.”

            “He cooks,” Dean says to himself, and Cas gives a short huff of amusement, turning back to his task.

            “Don’t get used to it,” Cas says. “My repertoire includes eggs and Ramen.”

            “Sorry my apartment is a wreck,” Dean says, shuffling into the kitchen to join Cas at the stove. “I was gonna try to clean before you woke up, but, er. You beat me to it.”

            “You’re fine,” Cas disagrees, smiling up at him. “Coffee?”

            Dean just stares at him slightly open-mouthed, at his dark rucked-up hair and his thin boxers and stupid stubble and just. _Ugh._ “I’m not even gonna lie, I’d go like another four rounds with you right now.”

            Cas’ smile shifts into a tiny smirk. “Weren’t you going to buy me dinner first?”

            “I can afford to buy you McDonald’s,” Dean offers, and it’s a joke but it’s one of those horrible mistakes of a joke where it’s immediately and transparently obvious that it’s actually _not_ a joke, and before Dean can take it back, Cas goes all soft, blinking at him with those dumb kind blue eyes that make Dean want to bury himself in a pothole.

            “You can _make_ dinner,” Cas suggests. “I’ll buy the ingredients.”

            “You really don’t have to—” Dean begins, embarrassed, but Cas interrupts him, “No, I will. I’m really high-maintenance. Gluten allergy and all.”

            “You are _so_ fucking with me right now,” Dean says and Cas shrugs, turning his smile down on the eggs. “Hey, I can take that over for a while. I’m the host, y’know? I feel bad that you’re making me eggs in my own apartment.”

            “Okay,” Cas agrees, sliding sideways, and Dean bumps into his space, nearly stepping on his bare toes. Cas glances up at him, his gaze gravitating to Dean’s lips, and he asks, seemingly non sequitur, “Do you have a shift today?”

            “Nope,” Dean says happily. “It’s my day off. What about you, any plans?”

            Cas’ mouth presses into a thin, amused line. “Not anymore.”

            Dean grins at him, and Cas has moved a step closer, some of that excess electric current from the night before recharging between them, and Dean leans forward to kiss him, mostly because he can. Cas meets him halfway, his hands moving up to cup either side of Dean’s jaw when their lips meet, and Dean’s still got one hand frozen on the spatula, the eggs forgotten when Cas does this thing with his tongue that should _not_ be legal in America, or in the world, really—

            It’s one of those kisses where Dean entirely forgets where he is, which is why when Cas pulls back a few moments later, he looks dazedly back to the eggs and finds one is bubbling grossly under the press of the spatula.

            “Shit,” he says, still half-out of it, and he scoops at the egg in the hopes of rescuing it. “You’re the worst kitchen aid ever.”

            Cas’ laugh catches in his throat, low and warm, and he brushes past Dean toward the kitchen doorway. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to locate my phone.”

            “Mhm,” Dean replies absently, still somewhere over the moon as he tries to focus on the eggs again.

            This is crazy, he thinks. This is insane. Dean’s got this weird, bubbly, soda-like feeling sending up a storm of butterflies in his stomach, and it makes his cold toes curl into the yellowed tile of the kitchen floor. When he refocuses, he finds he’s actually _humming._ It’s “Blue Sky” by the Allman Brothers, which he often reverts to as his anthem of tranquility, and he starts to quietly, tentatively sing the lyrics under his breath. He spends the next few moments staring blankly at the window at the stillness of morning life, at the unbroken blanket of snow that extends out to the main road, and tries to keep his pulse steady.

            Suddenly, there’s the sound of rapid footsteps at the kitchen entry, and when Dean glances up, he’s startled to see Cas, now fully clothed, struggling into his boots. He won’t meet Dean’s eyes but he’s breathing very quickly, his phone clenched white-knuckled in his hand.

            “Cas?” Dean asks, maybe confused, maybe dismayed. “What’s—”

            “I’m sorry, but I have to go,” Cas says in this horrible, distant voice, and he still won’t meet Dean’s eyes. “Something’s come up.”

            “What the hell’s going on?” Dean says, letting go of the spatula.

            “I don’t know yet,” Cas says, already out of the kitchen. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to leave. I’ll call you. I’m sorry, Dean—” and with that, he’s out the front door, a cold draft whistling through the house that Dean can feel spreading in his chest, arctic and numb.

            For a moment, he’s frozen, blinking at the empty kitchen doorway, his heart in the soles of his feet and entirely perplexed as to what had just occurred, before he clicks off the stove and moves the frying pan of eggs into the sink.

            He walks out into the living room, feeling a strong sense of either nausea or whiplash, and he refocuses his attention on the beige, familiar coat draped on the back of the couch closest to the front door. Cas must’ve left it on his way out.

            For a moment he just picks it up and stares at it blankly, turning it over in his hands, before he heads back into his room and tosses it on the bed, trying to shake the bereft feeling that’s already seeping through him, terrifyingly familiar. For a moment, he perches on the mattress and gazes at his phone on the floor next to his bed, waiting for it to light up with some sort of explanation, or maybe an apology, but the screen remains dark.

            Dean stays that way, in stasis, crouched on the edge of his empty mattress, for another 15 minutes. After that, he picks up the phone and dials Ellen’s number.

            “Ellen? Yeah, hey, it’s Dean. Do you have a shift opening for me today?”

 

**Chapter 4**

            Cas doesn’t call. So it goes.

            Dean tries not to get bitter and resentful and shitty about it, as he has a tendency to do when people randomly walk out on him for no apparent reason, because he’s hanging on to a scrap of faith that whatever it was that had impelled Cas to leave so suddenly was of some great importance. But as hours turn into days without a word, Dean starts to get…well, resentful and shitty about it. He calls a few times (okay, _more_ than a few), but gets Cas’ voicemail every time, usually without a dial tone. Yeah, Dean’s annoyed. Not hurt. Surely, whatever had happened, Cas could take like two minutes to send Dean a text? But whatever.

            Dean tries not to let his spirits plummet, especially as Christmas draws closer, but everyone instantly seems to notice his change in disposition. His coworkers stop asking about Cas and start tiptoeing around him, offering to take on shifts or unpleasant tasks. Mary makes him extra pancakes when he comes to visit. Sam invites Dean out, incessantly, to have a drink with him and Jess, but Dean’s fine. He’s seriously fine. Isn’t the first time he’s been left, won’t be the last.

            He’s fine without Cas, who he’d barely known anyway.

            He supposes it’d been his own stupidity and shortsightedness that had gotten him into this in the first place, anyway.

            He takes extra shifts at Harvelle’s, working overtime for extra pay (he wants to save up to get Sam an iPod he’s had his eye on) and spending more time at his mom’s place, because the apartment seems weird and drafty and cold and empty these days. Dean kind of hates himself that he’d let himself get so reaccustomed to having the warmth of someone else in bed with him in the course of one night, but that’s just the way he’s wired, he supposes.

            “Is this about that boy Ellen told me about?” Mary asks him out of the blue one night from the living room doorway, while Dean’s half-heartedly watching _A Christmas Story_ from the sofa with a beer resting on his thigh. “Castiel?”

            “I’m honestly fine, Mom,” Dean answers with a frown. “Never been better, really.” He brings his beer to his lips again, taking a long pull, but he can feel his mom’s eyes haven’t left him, dark with concern.

            “Dean,” she murmurs, shuffling over in her pink robe and settling next to him on the couch. She raises a hand to gently stroke her fingers through Dean’s hair, like she had when he was five years old and upset by something at school, and Dean closes his eyes. “You take on so much more than you can bear. You don’t have to carry the weight that you do, baby.”

            “I don’t know how to stop,” Dean replies, and Mary leans over to press a kiss to his temple.

\--

            The weather, amazingly, gets shittier as Christmas draws closer. Dean starts wearing long-sleeves under his work uniform to keep out the chill, and Ellen finally places a call to get the heating fixed, so Dean assumes there must be a God somewhere. They _have,_ however, started playing terrible Christmas carols on the audio system, and by the tenth time through “Angels We Have Heard on High” in a single day, Dean’s ready to strangle someone.

            “Hey, Dean,” Ellen says late that afternoon, stopping next to him at the bar and clapping his shoulder. “Can I ask you a huge favor?”

            “Always at your command, Ellen,” Dean says sweetly, pausing in his cash count to smile sardonically at her.

            Ellen purses her lips in dry amusement. “I thought we were at full staff tomorrow, and I know I promised you Christmas Eve off to spend with Sam, but Andy’s brother came down with something and he could really use the time off. Would you mind—?”

            “Don’t even worry about it,” Dean says, turning back to thumbing through nickels. “Don’t got anything better to do, anyway.”

            “Thanks, Dean,” Ellen says, her voice warm, and she pauses. “You know, we don’t do an Employee of the Year, but for what it’s worth, it’d be you. No contest. I mean that.”

            “Don’t tell Jo you said that,” Dean says with a grin, warmed by the praise all the same.

            “And the heavens will rain fire,” Ellen intones in an ominous voice, and Dean laughs and has to start over on counting nickels again. “Ash’ll start working again soon too, the lazy ass, so you should have an easier load by the new year.”

            _The new year._ Something about that makes something in Dean’s stomach drop like he’s gone over the edge of a particularly high roller coaster, which is fucking unpleasant, given Dean hates roller coasters. A new year and the same job, the same place, the same everything. He supposes he should be happy he _has_ a job, and of course, a family by blood and by bond. But that gross sinking feeling doesn’t leave him for the rest of the day, and he finds himself glancing over at the calendar hung up in the kitchen constantly, where December’s limited days seem to be highlighted in mockery.

            Does Dean even have a new year’s resolution?

            He could stand to lose 5 pounds, he thinks, and starts on the pennies.

\--

            Dean always loved Christmas Eve as a kid. Liked it better than Christmas itself, actually. He isn’t even sure what his favorite part was, in retrospect: baking cookies with Sam and his mom, setting them out on the fireplace along with nine (an _extra_ for Rudolph) carrots, tossing in bed until one in the morning in antsy excitement, waking up and racing downstairs only to find, to his and Sam’s delight, that the cookies and carrots had been eaten and left with a short thank-you note. He later called out the fact, quite by accident, that Santa had the same handwriting as his mom (and that’s the story of how Dean ruined Christmas, the way Sam tells it) and the tradition ended, even though Dean still bakes for Mom and Sam every year.

            But Christmas Eve has kind of lost his shine when he’s serving pints of sticky seasonal beer to drunken bastards in Santa hats which, you know. Holiday cheer. Dean’s not jibing with it this year.

            “Aren’t you glad you got the Christmas Eve shift?” Jo says with sarcasm, gesturing to her shirt, which is soaked through with someone’s spilled beer.

            “It’s the most wonderful time of the year, Jo,” Dean says severely. “Don’t ruin it for everyone now.”

            Jo delicately raises one middle finger and disappears into the kitchen to retrieve an order.

            When he finally gets a break to catch his breath, Dean leans his elbows on the bar and watches the different groups of families and friends laugh and chat at the tables around the restaurant. He’s drawn, in particular, to one couple in the far corner by the window. The guy is carrying around a small leaf of mistletoe with him, clearly as a joke, and he keeps raising it teasingly above the girl’s head; she laughs with pure, surprised happiness every time and they kiss often, knotting fingers in sweaters, smiles as bright as the freaking sun.

            Dean drops his head and tries not to feel just a little bit sick to his stomach.

            “Buck up, Dean,” Pamela says as she practically dances by him. “It’s Christmastime.”

            “Yeah,” Dean says weakly, straightening up from the bar. By habit, he reaches into his pocket to check his phone, but the screen is still blank. He’s probably downright obsessive about checking for texts from Cas at this point, but at least he can stew in his own misery in privacy.

            Luckily, business starts to trickle to a standstill around 5 o’clock; people rush off to be homes with their families for dinner, to wrap gifts, to catch the ABC Family Harry Potter marathon, or whatever it is hip people do these days. Dean’s cleaning up and doing stock in the kitchen to take his mind off the time, thinking wistfully about going home after close for his mom’s homemade eggnog and Sam’s terrible taste in Christmas movies. They might’ve already decorated the tree without him, but it’s not all that big of a deal. That’s always been more of Sam’s thing anyway.

            Jo steps back into the kitchen with a strange expression, biting her lip and looking at Dean expectantly. “Dean, uh…you’ve got a visitor.”

            Dean glances up and drops his rag in the dishwashing sink, instantly squashing his sudden jitter of nerves as he brushes past Jo without a word and heads out to the main bar area. _There’s no way_ , he tells himself, swinging around the corner.

            Sure enough, Cas is standing there just behind the bar, not an inch different except for the lack of trenchcoat (which Dean’s got hung up, rather pathetically, in his closet), and the dark, puffy circles under his eyes.

            Dean stops on the other side of the bar, ignoring the way his heart works itself rapidly into his throat, and asks, cold and completely deadpan, “Can I get a drink order for you, sir?”

            Cas’ expression twists into something almost pained. “Dean.”

            Dean doesn’t say anything, his throat working furiously to fight the strange and unbidden lump there. He can sense Ellen, Pamela, and Jo quietly observing him from the periphery, monitoring his reaction, and he tries very hard to ignore their surveillance.

            “I’m so sorry,” are Cas’ next words, and he drops his eyes from Dean’s, which is unusual for him. “I can’t…even express how sorry I am.”

            Anger, raw and cathartic, sparks up like an ember in Dean’s chest. “I mean, what the _hell,_ Cas.”

            “I feel awful,” Cas says hoarsely, shaking his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt this awful about anything.”

            “Can you at least…” Dean struggles, taking a deep, steady breath to keep any trace of emotion from his voice. “Can you at least _explain_ why you left without a word, and then proceeded to ignore me for days on end? Because I’m getting a _lot_ of mixed signals here.”

            “My father died,” Cas says, and something in Dean completely thaws, either in surprise or unthinking solidarity.

            All he can say to that is, stupidly, “Oh.”

            “But that’s no excuse for how I treated you,” Cas says, twisting his gloved hands together, his eyes still downcast. “I was going to call you, I swear I was, but I dropped my phone in a snowdrift and destroyed it and I haven’t had a chance to buy a new one—” Cas looks up at him despairingly, blue eyes bright with chagrin. “I know this must all sound like a lot of excuses to you, and I don’t blame you. But I want you to know that…” Cas takes a deep breath and blinks, seeming to steady himself. “I mean, it might be too little too late, but I like you so much, more than I have any right to, and I hope you can forgive me.”

            There’s a torrent of mixed emotion flooding through Dean that he can’t quite sort out; an even whirlpool of understanding, reluctant sympathy, residual anger that he now feels unentitled to, frustration at said invalidated anger, and something else unnamed, that same stupid electric something he always gets around Cas that draws him like a freaking magnet, that drives his pulse into steady, frenzied thrum in his ears.

            “I’m sorry to hear about your dad,” Dean eventually comes up with, clearing his throat. “Especially around the holidays. That’s…really awful.”

            “Heart attack,” Cas says quietly. “We weren’t all that close, as I said, but he was…a mentor to me, in a way, and he was very close to Michael and Anna. It’s been…difficult watching them endure it.”

            Dean plants both hands on the bar and bows his head, closing his eyes. “You left your damn coat.”

            “I know,” Cas says, and it sounds like there’s the trace of a hesitant smile in his voice. “I’ve been freezing without it.”

            Dean looks up at him again through narrowed eyes. “I’m still pissed at you.”

            “I hope you are,” Cas says. “But, for what it’s worth, if it’s worth anything, I like you a ridiculous, exorbitant amount. You’re all I can think about—or talk about, for that matter. It’s driving my siblings up walls.”

            Dean has to give a tiny, reluctant grin at that one, even if hates himself a little for it. “Really?”

            “Really,” Cas says gravely, breathing out in a sharp exhalation. “I’ve been going out of my head trying to get back to Lawrence. Airlines are…shitty this time of year.”

            “Two weeks,” Dean says, shaking his head. “Two weeks I didn’t hear from you. Talk about some vicious whiplash.”

            Cas’ eyes widen, practically doe-eyed with contrition. “I didn’t mean to leave you so suddenly, but I was…in shock, I suppose. The text I got from Michael didn’t say much, just that something had happened to Dad overnight and he wasn’t going to make it, and I just…it was like I was unconscious. Blackout. I don’t even remember leaving your apartment, quite honestly.”

            “You were rude as hell,” Dean fills him in.

            Cas bites down on a reluctant smile and rolls his eyes. “Fine. I deserve that.”

            “You ruined my eggs.”

            “ _You_ ruined your eggs.”

            Dean scowls at him. “I’m a _fantastic_ cook.”

            “I’ve heard great things,” Cas says, tilting his head and smiling. Quickly, the smile recedes, and they’re left gazing at one another in silence, perhaps searching for something to say, before Cas says, “Maybe we should start over.”

            “Like every romcom I ever did see,” Dean says with a snort.

            “‘Romcom?’” Cas echoes.

            “Romantic com—dude.”

            Cas has the grace to look mildly embarrassed at Dean’s incredulous look, his ears a tint pinker. “I’m not…hip with current jargon the way you are. My students mock me enough for it.”

            “Fine. So you’re saying we should just…erase the last month and pretend like nothing ever happened. Clean slate?”

            “ _Tabula rasa,_ ” Cas agrees. “Except for the sex part. That can stay in.”

            Dean chews on his lip, refusing to smile and let Cas win. “Okay. Fine. I’m Dean, I’m a bartender at Harvelle’s, and even though you’re a temperamental little shit, I like you a lot and you should date me.”

            “I accept your offer,” Cas says solemnly. “I will date you and buy you new food, even if you do dislike cats. And I’d like my coat back.”

            “You can get it tomorrow at my mom’s place.”

            Cas looks at him carefully, seeming surprised. “Will I be…welcome there? I wouldn’t want to impose, of course—”

            Dean rolls his eyes, pressing his lips together. “Just…come, alright? The Harvelle’s staff might give you some shit because I’ve been sulking over you for like, two weeks, but…” He fidgets, clears his throat, looks down. He shrugs. “I want you there.”

            “Okay,” Cas says, and when Dean looks up, he’s smiling. “I’ll be there then.”

            “Fine,” Dean replies, forcing himself to be casual. “I’ll see you there.”

            Cas tightens his mouth, looking very much as though he’s trying not to smile, and says, “Nice to meet you, Dean.”

            “Yeah,” Dean agrees. “Cas.”

            “I suppose I can’t kiss you at work.”

            “That would be incredibly unprofessional,” Dean says, then adds, “And _very_ inappropriate, given we barely even know each other.”

            “Of course,” Cas says somberly, but he brings his hand forward to brush his knuckles against Dean’s on the countertop, so gently that something in Dean goes all achy. “I’ll see you around, Dean.”

            “Yeah,” Dean echoes, dropping his head with a small, reluctant smile as Cas turns to go. “You will.”

            Cas leaves the restaurant and a chill lances through the bar, but Dean can hardly feel it.

            He drops his forehead on his forearms, and smiles.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title is pulled from the fun. song. This is my first AU that I’ve actually completed, so be gentle on me. The “fly in amber” metaphor and the “so it goes,” if you recognized them, were quiet nods to Dean’s love for Vonnegut.
> 
> I was gonna try and do the chapters thing but I have no idea how to actually work AO3.


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